A 24-year-old Ripley man was taken by air ambulance to a trauma centre in London with life threatening injuries after his car struck an SUV head-on on Lake Range Road last Wednesday evening.

An ORNGE helicopter takes off from the scene of a serious collision on Lake Range Road last Wednesday, heading to Victoria Hospital in London with a 24-year-old Ripley man. Two others were taken to Kincardine Hospital by ambulance. The OPP continues to investigate. (Barb McKay photo)

It was the first, and the worst of numerous crashes that plagued area roadways last week.

A medical marijuana company looking to set up shop in Kincardine has received a file number from Health Canada, putting it a step closer to gaining government approval to operate.

Deborah Howlett, president of OrganaGreen Cannabis Co. Ltd., confirmed last week that the company had submitted its application to Health Canada and received a file number, meaning that the application had been approved rather than rejected.

“They could reject an application for a number of reasons,” she said in an email to The Independent. “First, they conduct a thorough review of our personnel’s information for security clearance. Then, once we pass security clearance, we go into an enhanced screening stage. We hope to be passed the review stage by end of the summer but we can only anticipate the time it takes.”

Tristan Traynor, 5, from Ripley and Mya Benniger of Walkerton enjoyed some fun in the sand Saturday afternoon at Station Beach in Kincardine. The kids were in town to enjoy the Bruce Power Beach Party with thousands of other people. For a full page of colour photos, don't miss this week's print edition of The Kincardine Independent. (Josh Howald photo)

The project to expand HuronTel’s fibre optic network into Kincardine is well underway, with work expected to continue for the remainder of the summer.

The Ripley-based company, with offices in Goderich and Wingham and now Kincardine, announced in March that it would offer service in the 519-396 exchange. HuronTel hired Weber Contracting of Clifford to do the construction on municipal rights of way throughout the former Town of Kincardine.

“We’re really pleased with the response we’ve received so far and are really excited about serving this area,” HuronTel general manager Glenn Grubb told The Independent.

Bruce County EMS has signed an agreement with its dispatch service to ensure that defibrillators in public facilities can be located and accessed quickly.

The county’s paramedic service formalized the agreement recently with London Central Ambulance Communication Centre to provide the dispatch service with its public access defibrillator database and populate it.

“When someone calls 911 the location will come up and if a public access defibrillator is at that location the dispatcher will tell the caller where it is and that they should have someone else get it while the caller is instructed on CPR until the defibrillator is retrieved and at the patient’s side,” said Doug Smith, director of emergency services for Bruce County.

The Walker House hosted a high tea event on Sunday afternoon, which attracted people from far and wide. On the left is Cheryl MacDonald, who made the trip in from Tiverton for tea, and on the right is June Barker all the way from London, England. (Josh Howald photo)

A 39-year-old Brockton man was charged with two counts of trespassing and one count of voyeurism after being caught peering in the window of a Thomas Street, Walkerton home on June 26.

At 1:16 p.m. on that day, police received a report of a peeping tom and arrived on the scene to find that occupants of the home had caught a man looking in their window the previous night. The investigation culminated on July 16 with an arrest.

The man is scheduled to appear in court Aug. 17 to answer to the charges.

Bethany Collins of Community Living Kincardine and District, centre, is congratulated by Jennifer McCullough, left, and Louise Bursey after finishing Saturday's duathlon. Hundreds of women from all over North America took part in the 2015 Kincardine Women's Triathlon at Station Beach. (Barb McKay photo)

The Municipality of Kincardine has cancelled the project to extend municipal water and sewer services in Inverhuron.

After six years of studies, public meetings and nearly $1.5 million invested, council agreed last week to kill the project. While that will be good news for some residents who have been opposed to the idea of connecting to municipal water, for those residents in dire need of new septic systems there is currently no solution.

The Kincardine Family Health Organization announced last week that is has a plan to care for orphaned patients following the departure of Drs. Rejean Duwyn and Steven Poirier.

Gerry Glover, CEO of the Kincardine Family Health Team and manager of the Kincardine and Community Medical Clinic, issued a media release announcing that affected patients have been temporarily reassigned to other doctors. The clinic is currently working with the physician recruitment team to replace the doctors, who also took regular shifts in the emergency department at the Kincardine hospital.